Graphica Software - Mac OS X, FreeBSD & VMWare

Various Tidbits on FreeBSD

The following notes provide some tips for users of FreeBSD and on setting up FreeBSD to run as vritual machine on VMWare Fusion.

For additional tips on using OS X see the "Various Tidbits on Apple Macintosh OS X and OS X Server" page.

FreeBSD and VMWare Configuration and Optimisation

The following is a list of check and tips on creating VMWare FreeBSD virtual machines.

Check that you are using the em network driver, this is enabled with new version of VMWare (I am on Fusion 3.1.3) (On host - file: <vm>.vmx param: ethernet0.virtualDev="e1000" - in
When building custom kernal enable the following Network (within FreeBSD vm) driver: /usr/src/sys/i386/conf/<YourCustomConfig>): device em # Intel PRO/1000 Gigabit Ethernet Family
When building custom kernel enable the following SCSI (within FreeBSD vm) driver: device mpt # LSI-Logic MPT-Fusion
Note that older version of VMWare used to use: device bt # Buslogic/Mylex MultiMaster SCSI adapters, if you enable this and disable mpt in your current kernel build your computer will fail on rebooting after installing the new kernel
Update the Kernel Timer Frequency (file: /boot/loader.conf , param: kern.hz=50)

Here is a zip of custom kernel config file (VMWARE_MP & VMWARE_MP.hints) for FreeBSD 8, which removes all the unneeded devices from the kernel.

Most of these are tips are well described here, but this misses out on information required to build custom kernel.

FreeBSD Installation Instructions & Tips

Generally my preference is to install applications/packages via the Ports tree, as this ensures you have current versions and allows you to control the configuration of your installs. Like using all convienient installation procedures this also means that lots of default options have been selected and you might not end up with exactly what you want. A way of controlling this is to understand the dependencies amougst the packages and building the various dependent modules seperarately before you build the main application. This will result in the application then building using the configured dependents and so you can control how the overall application is created.

Here is index to building various software modules using the Ports tree, but also controlling what gets built and most importantly what does not get built...

Apache with PHP and PostgreSQL

Build Apache (Version 2.4) but making sure that you have thread safe Perl, disabling MySQL and using PostgreSQL instead.

See Steps 1 to 8, which start with OpenSSL install ..

OpenSIPS with PostgreSQL

This builds from the Apache/PostgreSQL install and also includes instructions to set up the OpenSIPS Control Panel admin client and other PHP admin tools to help with OpenSIPS adminstration.

Send any questions or comments regarding this site to info at graphica.com.au
Last Updated: Monday 30th December, 2013.